Female Breadwinners – Are Dads the New Mums?

We often receive fantastic e-mails from men, outside the Boys’ Club, who are the main carers within the household. Their letters are predominantly very supportive of our message – that the rise of the female breadwinners can benefit both men and women by offering greater flexibility in their roles. On the streets, in the shops, talking with fathers  – most people see that dads now drive kids to more dentist’ appointments, preside over more school  assignments and arrange more playmates than ever before.

According to the article ”Are Dads the New Moms?’ by Susan Thomas in the Wall Street Journal: “Research confirms the rise of co-parenting. A recent U.S. Census Bureau report found that 32% of fathers with working wives routinely care for their children under age 15, up from 26% in 2002. Popular culture has noted the trend, too. Involved regular-guy dads are now commonplace in commercials. In one AT&T ad, a dad diapers his baby while talking sports on his phone with a buddy.”

Men recognise the demands placed on them are changing and growing as we enter this new age. And most are far more open to the opportunities, challenges and even benefits it can unexpectedly bring. As one young father who writes to Female Breadwinners explains about his wife’s second pregnancy: ” Carol and I became so much closer in the final months of her pregnancy.  I’ve gained such an appreciation for what she does, and feel bad that it took me so long to realize these things.  She continued to work hard, all the while taking care of our baby growing inside her.  I was as supportive as I could be (I think, anyway) and as the big day drew near we began to appreciate that it would mark a huge tradeoff for us, for once the baby was born I’d take over as the primary parent and Carol, as the female breadwinners, would support me.  We’d done this of course with our first child but for some reason this time we really acknowledged it.  It was great for me because I felt useful during the pregnancy and absolutely empowered once the baby was born, while Carol was excited because she knew that the baby will be cared for by her husband and we could proceed ahead in our lives.” For them, this ‘brave new world’ of parenting gives them both a sense of contribution and purpose – that is not tied to old fashioned gender roles that are increasingly outdated.

In her article Thomas explains: “One recent study found that not only are men’s personal identities increasingly linked to being fathers, but so is their health. In a paper presented in early May at the Population Association of America’s annual conference, researchers from Ohio State University reported that more paternal involvement was associated with decreases in depression, substance abuse and risky behaviors for low-income fathers. It also improved their self-reported physical health.” As positive as it is to hear how spending time with their children benefits fathers, it’s also increased stress in achieving that holy grail historically considered a working mother’s issue: ‘work-life balance’.

Thomas continues: “Men are experiencing what women experienced when they first entered the workforce in record numbers—the pressure to ‘do it all in order to have it all,’ ” according to a report released by the Family and Work Institute last year. It also found that the acceleration in “work-family conflict” has been particularly conspicuous among fathers in two-income families, with 60% saying it was an issue in 2008, up from 35% in 1977. That figure remained relatively stable for women, at 41% in 1977 and 47% in 2008.” Clearly more needs to be done to promote flexible working – telecommuting, job shares, high quality part-time roles, for both men and women. Only when employers encourage men to use and openly advocate for these policies, will we see more gender parity in the workplace.

Professional Women Lead on Skills Needed for Businesses of Future – Capitalise on Yours on May 10

A few years ago, at an event I attended on “Women in the Workplace” the male CEO of a blue-chip company made the joke: “Wouldn’t it just be easier if women were more like men?” His comment was met with a few polite laughs, but his attempt at humour gave away his own discomfort with the evolving demands of senior leaders. Sure, we might answer, it would probably be easier for him and a few others, if women were indeed more like men. And in fact, much of the advice around ‘getting to the top’ has resulted in many women feeling they have to adopt a masculine persona to succeed.  These women may not only feel inauthentic compared to who they were when they started their career, but acting as mini-men makes them dubious role models for both junior women and men who want to see a less ‘alpha’ way of doing leadership.

If the message is that you have to ultimately change who you are to get to the top – then how attractive is that senior position actually going to be? The greater loss if ‘women are more like men’ is that we lose out on the great skills women bring to the workplace. McKinsey research points out women are statistically better performers when it comes to three key behaviours: People Development, Clarity around Expectations and Rewards and Role Modelling. This is vital stuff! In fact, when they looked at the 9 behaviours that drive business success, men only outpaced women on two of the nine criteria: individualistic decision-making and control and corrective action.

It is far better for women to be effective as women – being authentic to who they are as individuals and the diversity that brings to decision making. Individuals thrive being authentic because they rely on inherent skills, not an adopted persona put on for work. Acting with integrity to raise the status of those around you without diminishing your own worth is key. Performance improves because impact improves. Interestingly, the future workplace favours many of the skills professional women already have in abundance, such as integrity, ability to think laterally and collaborative thinking.  And the best bit? Using these strengths is not just a way for working woman to tap into these ‘superpowers’ – it’s fantastic for those around them! Colleagues love it because they are suddenly working with someone they can trust and who validates their own strengths. Clients adore it because acting with authenticity means they are treated with respect and understanding, even within commercial parameters and constraints. Managers love it because communication flows much more easily and employee development suddenly becomes a positive experience for all.

If this female-friendly way of working – a way that doesn’t require women to apologise for their perceived faults and frailties sounds good to you, then join Female Breadwinners on May 10 as we pair with Deborah Frances-White and Dr. Anne Moir at Leicester Square Theatre to unleash the ‘superpower’ revolution.  To reserve places for yourself, colleagues and clients, visit the New Girls Network website.

Working Mothers – Can you ‘Stay in the Positive’ with your Teens?

You may have felt you missed out on the owner’s manual when you first gave birth, but nothing prepares you for the crisis of confidence you may feel when your children reach their teens.

When I recently spoke with Judy Reith of www.parentingpeople.co.uk about the challenges my husband and I faced in raising my step-daughter, she smiled with reassurance: “Nobody has all the right answers when it comes to bringing up kids, let alone teenagers.  As parents, we also feel peer pressure! Society wants us to churn out perfect children and be perfect parents – but there is no such thing!”

This can be particularly challenging for mothers who are used to (or at least aspiring) perfection in their work lives. However, as Judy points out “Parents often experience a range of emotions often not that different from teens! They can feel sad their child only wants to see them when they need money or a lift, envious of their teen’s future opportunities, fed up when their partner disagrees on parenting styles and even have a heightened sense of their own mortality when realising they are raising the generation that will replace their own.”

I came into my step-daughter’s life when she was 7, but her teen years were by far the most challenging as we lamented: “We’ve raised her for years – shouldn’t we know what we’re doing by now?” What happened to that enthusiastic chatterbox who would let you plait her hair whilst you watched Strictly Come Dancing?  Who is this moody, spotty grunter you’re living with now who is seemingly glued to their XBox? In the first years, it all seems relatively straightforward compared to when kids reach those ‘tween years, where 13 can look, sound and try to act like 17.

Addressing challenging behaviour can descend from a giving a stern word to screaming rows. Parents can feel bewildered, unsure and stressed about coping in these turbulent years.  It can be extra difficult if you and your partner disagree on dealing with the challenges – which certainly happened with my own husband and I.

As Judy, mother of three teenage daughters, points out: “But it’s not all bad.  There are many great aspects to having teenagers under your roof. Shoe swaps, someone to have a laugh with, or simply watching them become their own person are some of the joys of parenting. “No doubt, there were many activities we did with my stepdaughter that allowed us to feel like kids again ourselves, like weekend bike rides and trips to the Chinese Circus and DisneyWorld.

Judy reminds us to remember the positive by focusing on: “What do you enjoy about your teenager?  Find a way to tell them. Teenagers are often given such bad press, and it can be hard to compliment someone who seems to be perennially rude to you, but the behaviour the parent comments on is more likely to be repeated, so it’s worth commenting on anything at all that is OK.  Tricky – it’s so much easier to point out their faults, but they need a good model, not a critic if they’re to navigate their way through adolescence.”

If you are raising teens, please join us tomorrow for the webinar on Parenting Skills for Busy Working Mothers: Raising Teens and ‘Tweens in the 21st Century on April 26th at 8Pm where we will have Judy Reith with us to share ideas on how to make the choppy waters of your teen’s adolescent years feel a little more like plain (or plainer!) sailing.

Raising daughters: How to change your ‘good girl’ to an ‘amazing woman’

I often talk to audiences of professional women and men about how there has never been a better time to live as a woman – and how we want to open doors for our daughters. Women today have rights and opportunities that generations before could never have even imagined. We can work in whichever field we please, choose to limit our family size, invest in our education, earn for ourselves – all privileges our grandmothers could not as easily access. It was difficult to then reconcile these realities with a statement I recently read by Caitlin Lanagan, author of ‘Girl Land’ a book about the heavy expectations we have for our daughters and their fear of failure – largely inherited by us as working mothers.

In ‘Little Miss Perfect’ an article in the Sunday Times, Lanagan is credited with positing that ‘the modern world is absolutely the worst time to be living as a girl’ – a statement I recognise also has some validity. In an age of cyber bullying, tagged photos that are seemingly cached for eternity and the ‘creep’ of ever higher expectations for perfectionism, I have often commented to friends I wouldn’t want to be a teen again.

Like my generation, research suggests girls are still pressured to be nice, polite, modest and selfless which curtails their power and potential. To add insult to injury, modern teenage girls are also expected to be accomplished and highly driven to boot. Duke University calls this ‘effortless perfection’ and see it among teenage girls who are finding that living up to modern society’s feminine ideal is anything but effortless. We are entering the dangerous era of junior ‘Superwoman’.

At the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls Development, headed by Carol Gilligan, an esteemed expert in this field, they can even detect a key age when girls change from being ‘real’ to being ‘good’. They see the shift most noticeably at age 12, when a girl ‘makes the simple outward change of giving up a connection to her full range of feelings in favour of fitting in’. The researchers say these girls eschew self hood to garner favour from others because we thrive on connection and fear rejection. The kicker is that girls they interviewed fear this rejection and expectation to ‘play nice’ mostly from mothers – the same people who instill in us the perfectionism they also try to live up to.

When working with my female coaching clients, I often ask them – “How would you benefit if you could be satisfied with 80% perfect?” It’s a question that always brings a smile and a discussion about the relief they would feel. Perhaps a new follow up question should be: “How would your daughter benefit if she saw its okay to be 80% perfect?” How amazing would that be for both of you?  If you are challenged by raising teens or ‘tweens you can listen to the recorded webinar “Parenting Skills for Busy Working Mothers: Raising Teens and ‘Tweens in the 21st Century”

“Power Poses”: Use your Body to Fake it Until You Make it

I thoroughly recommend checking out the Poptech video by Dr Amy Cuddy, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, it’s great to watch during your next coffee break.

My favourite points from the video are:

1. Smile To Make Yourself Happy: We tend to think being happy leads us to smile, but actually the reverse is true as well. Smiling even when you’ve had a lousy day at work actually boosts your mood and helps you overcome that sense of malaise we all get from time to time.

2. Spread Your Legs Ladies! Cuddy discusses how she noticed that non-white men and women of all races on her MBA programmes spoke up less and took up the least amount of physical space. For example, women cross their arms and legs and fold themselves into smaller poses when speaking. She and a colleague were inspired to run an experiment forcing these students for just two minutes to ‘take up more space’ by putting their arms behind their heads, putting their feet up on a table or spreading their legs further when seated or standing. Amazingly they started contributing more to discussions and ‘owned their space’ with the confidence that imbued.

3. Ramp Up your Testosterone for Confidence: For too long we have associated testosterone only with men, but Cuddy points out that the hormone actually increases in any situation involving leadership skills and dominance. Fascinatingly there are ways we can artificially increase it to our advantage before we go into situations where we need to feel in control; like interviews, negotiations, appraisals, speeches or meetings.

4. Don’t Kill Them With Kindness: A last insightful point Cuddy makes about meeting new people is to avoid being sycophantic, as it immediately puts you in the lower position – not a great start to any discussion. I have certainly fallen foul of meeting someone I admire; smothering them with praise such as “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you…” which immediately makes me at best secondary player. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a compliment, but go for a much less saccharine “I have admired your work on …” or “It’s lovely to finally meet you, I enjoyed hearing you speak at…”    before following up on what you share in common.

We will be discussing how vital positive body language is to every day success in an upcoming webinar on April 16th, Postures for Professional Prominence: Using Positive Non-Verbal Behaviour to Persuade and Influence. I will be pairing up with Elizabeth Kuhnke author of Body Language for Dummies and Persuasion and Influence for Dummies.

 

Reproductive Choice – Looming Battle on this Personal, Political and Business Issue

As we enter April with a battle looming in the U.S and increasingly in Europe over the most basic of human rights; reproductive rights for women.

The tenor of the U.S Republican nominations has brought an issue most felt we were long past; reproductive choice, back to the fore. The topic is so crucial to Female Breadwinners as economic security for women is built on their ability to plan family size – and therefore access education and remunerative work.

With U.S. Republican legislators and candidates vowing to restrict and even criminalise abortion and stop government funding for birth control, women everywhere should be very concerned. In Arizona, they proposed a new bill allowing employers to fire women using oral contraception – deemed ‘whore pills’ unless they can prove they don’t engage in casual sex! It is ridiculous that the same employers who quibble over maternity leave as a major deterrent to hiring women would now want the right to only employ women who use no contraception at all!

Forbes recently reported on Why you have the Pill to thank for 30% of your paycheck an article detailing the findings of economist Martha Bailey. She says “By cause or coincidence, the pill’s diffusion coincided with important changes in norms and ideas about women’s work and the end of the baby boom.” But it’s clear that as the Pill provided younger women with more control over childbearing, the number of women seeking higher education and traditionally male-dominated careers spiked.

As Amanda Marcotte of  www.pandagon.net explained to Stylist magazine “Reproductive rights are critical to women’s economic empowerment, which is threatening to the right – but also threatening on an interpersonal level. Women’s independence means we can be pickier about marriage and motherhood. Men who feel entitled to marriages where women worship and obey them without expecting anything in return? They’re finding their prospects diminishing and they’re angry.”

Ironically these proposals come from the same politicians who wouldn’t question why vasectomies and even Viagra are widely covered by most U.S. insurers. It would set women, and the economy they support, back decades to have reproductive rights curtailed. Smaller families benefit women and their careers, but also the economic and educational prospects of the children these women choose to have and the men with which they partner.

While the developing world is waking up to the fact that reproductive choice is the best way to move nations out of poverty, American conservative politicians seem to be trying to set back the clock on women’s economic progress.

And why should these shifting winds in America be important to British women?  Because anti-choice stalwarts increasingly feel empowered to protest in the UK as well. Anti-choice groups like 40 Days for Life are protesting outside London clinics and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service says staff and clients face new waves of intimidation. Working women must not allow reproductive rights to be challenged. This is personal and political but also a business issue.